Strange that only now, 4 years after the war began, and when the tide of public opinion has turned overwhelmingly against the war you finally speak out.
You had an amazing opportunity 4 years ago to speak up. You could have tried then to talk some sense into George W. Bush, and failing that, to resign in protest. You and Collin Powell both were in a unique position to do something. The Director of the CIA and The Secretary of State resigning in protest could have slowed the drumbeat for war in the mass media and actually make people think twice. I know how stubborn Bush is. I know it probably wouldn’t have made any impression on The Decider… but damnit, it was your moral obligation to at least try to swim against the tide.
Better late than never… but still: Too little, too late.
I agree, Mr. Tenet’s protestations of exploitation by dishonorable men are weak. And not terribly convincing. He claims that he and his integrity were impugned some four years ago when a leaker in the White House quoted his “slam dunk” verbiage in a twisted context. However, even the corrected context that he insists upon today marks him as a willing participant in crafting a sales pitch to the American people.
If he truly saw the crafting of the sales pitch as the tawdry bit of manipulation that it was, he had an auspicious opportunity to atone for his part by setting forth the corrected context in time for the Deciderer’s “accountability moment” in November of 2004.
All this stuff — what the Republicans have done to squander the many great opportunities they have had to lead the country and the world into a prosperous future — reminds me of the documentary I saw about a homeless miscreant who was given $100,000. Within months, he was penniless, had burned all his bridges, and was worse off than ever.
There’s the problem right there! He bought flammable bridges.
Tenet can fucking bite me. I remember how they used that sound bite, how much cover it gave the Bushiviks. Whatever oath of office he may have taken, he failed miserably and repeatedly, and then had the nerve to stand there and let Bush drape a medal around his neck. Heckuva job, Georgie.
Once again, I regret the absense of a “puking yer guts out” smilie.
He went back to the bridge under which he used to live, but the junk he had collected there — moldy blankets, rusty tin cans, and such — had all been stolen.
I recall reading that within 3 or 4 days of the arrest of Zacharius Moussawi (sp?), Tenet had a report in his hands about the arest by the FBI of the guy who wanted to learn to fly big jets, but didn’t care about landing them. This tells me that there were several people in the CIA who completely understood the implications of this, and pushed it right up the chain of command to the top in order to get action.
This also tell me that the CIA, in terms of operational and mid-management people, did their jobs rather well. George Tenet, and no one else, made the call – do nothing, it’s not important, it’s nothing.
I’ve always read it in his “correct” context. Slam dunk “case” as in we have enough here to convince those rubes in fly-over country. And he was right about that. I guess he wants to set the record straight, he is a liar not incompetent. Good game, sir.
Government of the charlatons, by the charlatons and for the charlatons.
In the case of this administration, its members, heirs, and assigns, self-government has failed miserably in its principle task of selecting competent and trustworthy leaders.
It seems a whole lot of people are willing to dump on the Bush Administration, now that it’s safe and it doesn’t matter.
There was a time for disgruntled Bushies to speak up. Several, actually. One was during the run-up to war. Another was during the run-up to the 2004 election. Speaking up at those times could have made a BIG difference.
Speaking up now, when it doesn’t make a difference and we’re changing the country already without your help, thankyewverymuch…well, Dylan said it best 40 years ago:
You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning
Let’s not overlook Sen. Dick Durbin (D,Il) of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He just now came out and said that at the time he was hearing entirely different stories in their secret committee hearings than was being said publicly by the administration. Sure, he can’t reveal the secret material of the hearings. Surely he can say to the other senators that there is something mighty fishy going on. And he could surely hold a press conference and say that what he was hearing publicly didn’t jibe with what the committee was hearing.
If the members of the Intelligence Committee can’t make any use of the information they have what is the point of having the damned committee?
IIRC it would have been a serious breach of security to even hint to what was really going on. Because of the security rules, they were even prevented from telling anything to their fellow democrats. I pointed before that the democrats back then showed that they were the ones that were more willing to follow the rules, while almost at the same time the Republicans were busy leaking “info” that supported their position.
“Party before country” is the current Republican motto IMO.
